Saudi king names son heir, bringing in new generation
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia’s King Salman appointed his 31-year-old son Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince on Wednesday, placing him first-inline to the throne and laying the groundwork for an entirely new generation of royals to take the reins.
Saudi Arabia’s once powerful counterterrorism czar, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, was removed from the line of succession. The move gives the younger prince a firmer hold on the kingdom’s foreign policies, including its close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump, its rivalry with Iran, its more than two-year-long war in Yemen and its punishing moves to isolate Qatar.
The appointment of such a young royal as the immediate heir to the throne essentially sets Saudi policy for decades in the hands of a man seen as a risk taker. “He could be there for 50 years,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. “If you look at it positively, it is basically setting Saudi Arabia’s course into the 21st century.”
The shuffle stripped Mohammed bin Nayef of his title as crown prince and interior minister, overseeing security. The announcements were made in a series of royal decrees carried on the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
The all-but-certain takeover of the throne by Mohammed bin Salman awards vast powers to a young prince who has taken a hard line with Iran and who has led a war in Yemen that has killed thousands of civilians. Iran’s state TV has called the appointment a “soft coup in Saudi Arabia.”
The prince, known as MBS, already oversees a vast portfolio as defence minister. He has also become popular among some of Saudi Arabia’s youth, who make up the bulk of the population, for pursuing reforms that have opened the conservative country to entertainment and greater foreign investments as part of an effort to overhaul the economy.
The young prince was little known to Saudis before Salman became king in January 2015. He had previously been in charge of his father’s royal court when Salman was the crown prince.
The Saudi monarch quickly named him second-inline to the throne two years ago to the surprise of many within the royal family who were older and more experienced. MBS is now poised to become the first Saudi monarch from a generation of royals who represent the grandsons of the country’s founder, King Abdul-Aziz. For decades, the throne has passed from elderly brother to elderly brother — all sons of the late founder.